Rates & Barrels - Building Blocks & Backup Plans

Episode Date: March 7, 2025

Eno and DVR discuss Lawrence Butler's seven-year extension with the A's, and a few potential comps for him as he approaches his peak. Plus, they share a few lessons learned from The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational, where waiting too long to address the middle-infield spots may prove costly, and answer a few draft-related mailbag questions. Rundown 2:19 Lawrence Butler's Seven-Year Extension with the A's 11:42 Awaiting Details On Grayson Rodriguez's Triceps Soreness 14:45 Christian Walker Sent for MRI (Oblique) 21:35 Making Sense of Spring Velocity Drops & Cutting Through Noise 26:25 Lessons Learned From TGFBI 34:28 Becoming More Flexible Throughout a Draft 46:47 Who Will Be This Year's Jack Flaherty? 51:12 Strategy Beyond Pick 100 56:02 Drake Baldwin & Dynasty League Catcher Thoughts Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris Producer Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's free and easy to use, and you can get cash back deposited into your PayPal account or sent to you as a check. It's the smartest way to shop, plain and simple. Start your shopping at rakuten.ca or get the Rakuten app. That's R get the Rack-A-Ten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N dot C-A. Hi, it's Alexa Weibel from New York Times Cooking.

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easy dishes for busy weeknights. You can find more at NYTCooking.com. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Friday, March 7th, Derek Van Riper, Eno Saris here with you on a fantasy Friday. A lot of fantasy talk on this episode. We're going to take a look at some baseball news you should know including a seven-year extension for Lawrence Butler we have some more spring injury news to get to we've got some really compelling mailbag questions that are kind of nice bigger picture players you might want to target things you might want to do strategically so we'll get to those a little bit later on in the show as well some housekeeping as we get started another reminder we've got

two live podcasts coming up later this month at Bare Bottle Brewing Company, March 27th and March 28th, 430 PM local time. That's Pacific. I think I said Eastern yesterday on YouTube. We definitely are on Pacific time, especially being in San Francisco. Hope you can make it out for one or both of those shows. Really excited for that. Just three weeks away. Hard to believe we're that close to stateside opening day already, you know. I'm not that close. Three weeks, close. It's gonna be here before you know it.

Yeah, I guess so. What's really close is I'm leaving for spring training on Sunday and that has made a mess of things in the house here. I've got a lot to do today. Big to-do list. We started recording a little early to accommodate that. Some other housekeeping, just briefly, the top 300 hitters are up on the site. I'll have an update for that around this time next week

to reflect some of the injuries that are piling up around the league right now. So we'll have updates on the show as those things happen too, but the actual list that's posted will be updated in about one week. And we do have the 2024 Top 10 Listener League Finisher invites out thanks to our friend Jeff Good, Low Guppy, and our Discord. I think we tracked everybody down.

If you haven't received your invite via email yet, check the email that you had linked to your FanTracks account. We'll get that going as a slow draft here in the near future. So a lot of balls in the air as we get closer and closer to opening day. Let's start with the news though, you know, Lawrence Butler signs a seven year, 66 and a half million dollar extension with the A's. It also includes a club option for the year 2032. Apparently that's a year.

Maybe we'll get there. This is all according to Jeff Passen at ESPN. I want to start by asking you, who do you think Lawrence Butler is most similar to as a player at this stage of his career? And where do you think the long term outcome goes in terms of years and dollars and what Butler's done so far? This is a team friendly deal that should work out just fine for the A's. It's more of a question of by how much do we think Lawrence Butler

could possibly exceed the value of the contract extension that he just signed with the A's? Yeah, really, this is a team friendly deal. They're going to get two years of free agency, you know, possibly three. So then they would get 30 and 31 and they have a 32 option. two years of free agency, possibly three. So then they would get 30 and 31 and they have a 32 option. I mean, that's great for this money. I don't think he should have signed this deal, but it's life-changing money, it's locked in.

And I guess the risk for him or for surrounding him is that his defense hasn't been that great to begin with. He's not a center fielder and the contact rate has been a little up and down recently. And it's been a lot better than it was early in, in his minor league career. And so I went and tried to use that swinging strike rates and his batted ball Vilos, he has a 113 max EV, which is pretty good. His barrel rates and his speed. So Veloz, he has a 113 max EV which is pretty good, his barrel rates, and his speed. So I use stolen basses. So over the last two years, you know, you had

to have at least 20 steals, a swing strike rate between 10 and 13%, a barrel rate over 7%, and you can see right on the screen how he lines up with the average of this group. He lines up pretty well. He swings the mess a little bit more than this group, but his barrel rate so far is better than this group and he definitely has the speed to hang with this group and it's an exciting group if you ask me. Francisco Lindor, Gunnar Henderson, Ian Hap, Christian Jelic, Jaren Duran and Ozzy Albies. My favorite actually is Jaron Duran. I think he looks so much like Jaron Duran down to the iffy defense, little bit of swing and miss,

good athlete, you know, so best case scenario, Butler improves his defense, and maybe that just improves his defensive numbers, or even as up in center field, he has the tools to do it. Worst case scenario, I think the, scenario I think the defense doesn't ever improve. He's never really good there and the strikeout rate goes up but he's floated by his tools and still has the speed and the power and iffy OBP. That's the worst case.

I think in some ways the worst case scenario is sort of what he's done with a 300 OBP I think the arrow is in the other direction. He's 24 You know right now and last year in triple-a. He really improved his strikeout rates He's had better walk rates in the minors than he showed in the majors So there's a lot of reason and then you look at aging curves and you'd expect Just given the aging curves for him to improve his strikeout rate, to improve his walk rate, to hit fewer grounders. Those are the things that happen with just natural aging until 27.

So three years of improvement, there's gonna be a year in there from Butler that's gonna be pretty special, I think. Yeah, it might be four or five war seasons at his peak. I think that's in his range of outcomes. Not necessarily a superstar, but a very good player. I think the Jaren Durand comp makes a lot of sense. And I think, you know, Jaren Durand improving his defense, at least for 2024, kind of gives you the idea that there's some ceiling there as well. Right.

Like the defender Lawrence Butler was last year isn't necessarily the defender he's going to be for the next couple of seasons. Either that facet of his game could definitely improve. From a fantasy perspective, we've talked a lot about the A's, the hitters being bumped up in value, moving out of the Coliseum, moving into the AAA ballpark in Sacramento, thinking about the weather and the dimensions of that ballpark. So there's already an up arrow next to the bats in general. The toss ups here are actually pretty interesting from a hitter perspective. It's Butler against his teammate, Brent Rooker. Who would you rather have on your team for 2025 only,

Rooker or Butler? I've been looking for steals everywhere. The funny thing is everyone's like, oh, with this more steals, you don't need to always go for them. But like, because there's more steals, what you need also has gone up. The threshold's gone up, but a lot of players

that were getting you almost zero or less than five are bumped up and getting you eight, 10, 12. Yeah, I think even Rooker, what did Rooker have, 11 last year or something? Rooker had 11 last year, so yeah, that's true, but you know, you went from needing, I remember needing maybe like 110 to 120 stolen bases Now my target is 180

So I'd rather have Butler all right, and he's 18 for 18 last year over 451 plate appearances you start to play that game of hey, maybe if it's you know full 150 155 with over 600 played appearances, we're talking about 25 bags, maybe we're talking about 30 steals, maybe we're talking about some steps forward where it's a 280, 290 sort of batting average too. In the second half of last year,

Lawrence Butler was a top 10 player. Yeah, Rooker's quite a bit older. Yeah, so I'm not out on guys over 30, but I want discounts on them. Yeah, it was pointed out, you've been really focused on player ages throughout this entire winter. That's one of the recurring Eno approach things for 2025

that wasn't as much a part of your analysis in the past. It's always been there, but it seems like you've placed more weight on it lately. Well, some of it's Jeff Zimmerman's research that, you know, projected bounce backs for guys over 32 are less reliable. In the past, I've definitely gone for like the Goldschmidt in New York, you know? And now I'll do it, but I just want that discount because I think the game's rules have changed to impact this a little bit.

The game itself, the people running the game want athleticism. The teams want younger players because they're cheaper partially, but also because they're pre-peak which is 26 or 27. Like why would I want to shop more in the post-peak bin? The only reason that I'd want to shop in the post-peak bin is if I'm getting more of a discount than I think I should. Like I did just take U Darvish in TGFBI, but I took U Darvish in the 17th round. You know, at that point, you can throw age out the window a little bit.

You know? But yeah, early on, I want guys that are not 30 yet. I do have Rooker six spots ahead of Butler on the top 300 hitter rankings. Main reason for me is I'm still leaning a little more in the direction you described. I'm on that side that says I can find enough bags later. I'd rather take the higher immediate power even though I could see Butler getting up to that level.

The gap is small enough where if you like Butler better and you take him over Rooker, I don't think you're wrong. If you don't like having someone in your UT spot in the early rounds, that's fine. That's a personal preference. I don't mind it. I have all those masters I have Rooker Ozuna and Kyle Schwaber and Teasker Hernandez all sort of jammed together just in front of Albies, El Tuve and Butler even though you know those three guys Albies was a comp for Butler, but Albies has been hurt more often and is older at this point and doesn't steal as many bags maybe. So we'll see about that in a full Southeast season.

You did mention something that I'd want to circle back on later. We will be talking a little bit about our teams. I know nobody cares about your fancy team, but if we can talk about the strategy aspect of it, maybe you'll learn a little bit from our mistakes and what we're going through. And I just want to put a pin on that idea of six spots difference, like, depending on your team needs. I think that's a really fascinating idea of like, what is an appropriate amount to jump a guy, to move a guy, depending on your needs. Like part of fantasy is getting the best players you can, getting the best values, but you can play a board where you get the best values and you have zero steals.

Or you just have a group of players that don't fit quite right together. All like 33 year olds. You're like, yay. So there are these moments, and we'll talk about a couple of these. They're painful moments where you're like, okay, my sheet says I should do this,

my values say I should do this, but my needs say something else. Yeah, that definitely happens. Let's get to a few other news items here. Grayson Rodriguez undergoing tests for triceps soreness. No, no, no, no, this is not what we want. So news items here, Grayson Rodriguez undergoing tests for triceps soreness. No no no no, this is not what we want. This is a situation that I've worried about as someone who really likes Grayson Rodriguez

because injuries have been kind of a consistent problem for him throughout his time in the Orioles organization. So the diagnosis as it is isn't the problem, it's the what will the further test reveal question and that's the unknown as the weekend approaches, which I just think is something that's going to happen more as the draft season kind of hits its peak in the next couple of weeks. You have these gaps sometimes where the initial news comes out, the draft happens, and you're awaiting the result of an MRI or an x-ray or whatever it is just had it with Luis heal like you might have taken heal in that moment we're like maybe it'll be okay maybe it's a month the

news wasn't great so yeah I mean I think Rodriguez where he usually goes kind of in that pick 100 to 125 range there were so many other players I like up there I mean one of the easiest is like Hunter Brown is right next to him. It's a loaded spot right now. I mean the would you rather's in that section are ridiculous. It's Shane McClanahan, Zach Gallin. There's a great piece on Fangrass with Michael Rosen today about Spencer Schwalmbach being throwing like throwing any pitch in any count. He doesn't have any count where he has a pitch over 50%.

He has a wide variety. He throws, yeah. Schwalbeck, I take Schwalbeck over Grissner. I take Hunter Brown over him. I think probably at this point, yeah, I take Joe Ryan over him. The new Max pick. Max is going down.

Yeah, Max is the latest he's gone. And this is just looking at March ADPs so it's got stuff in there from last night in times of uncertainty. Pick 235. At that discount, yeah, I'm definitely thinking about it. It's kind of a question of how long do I play that game of chicken given what we know right now and then factoring in previous injuries that Grayson Rodriguez has dealt with. Like how about like Shotai Managa, Jared Jones, Ryan Pepeo versus him?

All those guys ahead of Grayson until we get the update on this injury. How about Kodai Senga? Is that a better, would you rather? That's a closer would you rather. I think, I might go Senga. But yeah, now we're kind of in that 160, 180 range. I've also got Clark Schmidt there,

where I have Clark Schmidt and Kodai Sanger for 128 innings and I just downgraded, Grayson already gets to 132. So that seems about right. That's probably the cluster he would go in again. That could change a second time once we get the follow up, but having to react to step one of a two step injury update

is a little bit tricky when we get to this part of the calendar. Maybe something similar is happening in Houston right now. Christian Walker has been sent back to Houston for an MRI on his oblique, so it's not great because we know obliques for hitters can be month long injuries pretty easily and as Chan the Roam wrote for the Athletic,

his latest piece, there was about a month missed last season in Arizona for Walker with a similar injury in the second half, it was a left oblique strain. This is probably one of those situations that you can assume a month right now and maybe have a little more confidence than you'd have in the Grayson Rodriguez situation. But at the same time, you come back to the price being still high enough where

why would you opt into an injured player situation with Christian Walker? That's kind of where I'm at with him. I think if I were downgrading him on the list right now, this is a guy that was going inside the top 100 by ADP when healthy, pick 165 now has become his max. That would knock him down in the range of Paul Goldschmidt, Spencer Steer, that feels about right for someone that could end up missing a month. So I think if I'm drafting this weekend

and we don't have the results of those MRIs of the MRI on Christian Walker. Well, Steer might miss opening. I mean, Steer's getting cortisone shots. They haven't said he's gonna miss opening day, but I think that there was some update that was he might not make it for opening day. Yeah, it doesn't look great for Spencer Steer. Could begin the season on the injured list. So Steer himself is dropping. In mind, Steer just went in the 18th. Goldschmidt went in the 12th. Walker went pre-injury news in

the 7th. So, you know, would he go all the way down to 18th? If you're letting Walker go all the way down to the 18th where Steer is, then you would take Hoskins or Nate Lowe or Ryan Mountcastle over him right now? No, I'd take Walker over all those guys. I think my stopping point is the average spot for Steer, not the, like Steer's falling way further.

12th this round? So he's running he's falling five rounds. So the Goltzman Yandy Diaz you might take him in that mix But he ahead of tolia and Michael Bush some of their in that yep, because when healthy Walker plays his every day You're not worried about it parks a good fit underlying skills are solid. That's right. Park is an underrated fit I was I almost took Walker in this draft because the change from Arizona to Houston in terms of right-handed power factors is actually pretty large.

I think he goes from bottom third of the league to top third of the league. Yeah, we know we can pull it. That's what he does. So he has to drop, but what is also difficult is I'm in this draft where I took Romdo Cunha Jr. And once you take one guy that's not ready for opening day

and you have like a seven man bench or something, it's kind of hard to take another guy. Like Steer has been dropping. I'm like, can I take Steer? I don't think I can. Then my bench is gonna get real crowded real quick. And I don't know if I really wanna be playing that game the whole way through.

So it's a little bit like pitcher injury. If you take a pitcher risk near the top, you start to price yourself out of other guys later and steer and walker. So if you keep yourself pretty pristine health-wise, you don't take Ronald Nakunha Jr. I think you can get some values on these guys because yeah, they're gonna say,

like they'll say miss opening day and then that's like That I think sometimes that has over outsides importance to us because we're like, oh my god It's gonna miss opening day But he could be ready a week or two later and you know, there's a lot of pessimism about why not Ronald? Okunia jr. Is to be ready Well, there's a lot of pessimism about when he would be ready last time and then he was ready in April I know he's older and a second one, but it's like steer could quote-un unquote miss opening day and be ready in week two.

Yeah, because you can retroactively do it for a couple of days before the season. And there's some off days in there. So it ends up being a pretty small number of games. If it's a minimum IELTS then at the beginning of the season, you don't like the idea of like, oh, he's already like, you want the guy is going to be healthy all year. So the guy's already injured. You're like, well, he's already injured. So I get it. He has to fall But there are times when that can be a value what's happening around him is also interesting

So the idea now might be that cam smith makes the roster maybe cam smith plays third. He's not praised plays first cam smith is Again, i'm gonna cite some small sample spring stats, but I'm not gonna actually cite them. I'm just gonna say he's raking, and most importantly, he's not striking out. He doesn't look overmatched. He's playing the starters, and he's doing fine.

And I think the other kind of news is, they're saying Kamp Smith might make the roster because Walker might not, and they're not saying anything about second base So I'm reading between lines here and being like I think Brendan Rodgers is second baseman What it's looking like if they were to go without Cam Smith on the opening day roster would be a mix of probably John Singleton at least against righties Zach Dezenso maybe some time. They can use Victor Caratini occasionally at first base. I think Shay Whitcomb would definitely make the roster.

You know, as kind of the backup to all those guys. John Singleton actually showed up super cut. You apparently like did a new workout regimen and looks totally different body wise. I don't know if that means anything. John Singleton is making this roster either way. So John Singleton gets a boost. I think he just plays more, though, if they decide not to bring Smith.

But having a big spring, though. So there's definitely a chance. And I think it's going to be interesting because as we continue to have questions about the Astros avoiding the rebuild and kind of wondering what's the decision making hierarchy there when it comes to free agency and just how they how they choose to operate. Dana Brown's still the GM and Dana Brown has a strong scouting background. Dana Brown's a big part of the reason why Atlanta's core is as good as it is and if so he might be out there watching Kamp Smith saying my eyes say

he's ready let's do it right and if he's it's also a win for me if I just write an evaluation That's that's a that's a big deal So I do think there's kind of a lot at stake overall it doesn't have to be for opening day But the type of player he is and how quickly he gets there might matter for because I traded around for him Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be a little like pressure there It's the season to shop new styles Electronics and definitely a holiday trip and what if each time you made a purchase Letting pressure there. It's the season to shop new styles, electronics, and definitely a holiday trip.

And what if each time you made a purchase, you got a little something back? With Rakuten, you can earn cash back on just about anything you buy from over 750 stores. So if you're looking to buy a new phone, clothes, skincare, or a getaway, well, you can get cash back. So treat yourself, family, and friends and book that holiday trip now. Start getting cash back today by joining Rakuten.

It's free and easy to use, and you can get cash back deposited into your PayPal account or sent to you as a check. It's the smartest way to shop, plain and simple. Start your shopping at rakuten.ca or get the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N.C-A. Minor injuries to follow up on. Corbin Carroll's back in the starting lineup for the Diamondbacks on Friday.

He's been dealing with the little back thing, but didn't seem like it was serious. And then Junior Kamenero is day to day with some back tightness of his own. There's another thing. You can overreact to these small things. So you could be like, oh, carbon carol's back. Oh God, I can't draft him.

Well, I did do this. Aaron Nolas Velo was down. I don't know what year it was last year or two years ago, whatever it was. Aaron Nolas Velo is down. I was like, oh God, he's hurt. He's old. He's you know, and I traded him and I did not get a good return in Devil's Rejects and kind of overreacted and Aaron Noll's Velo's down again.

It was 90.5 is the last start. This makes it really difficult because Grayson Rodriguez's Velo's down. And they said, Oh, no big deal after it. I was just tired. I wasn't really, I'm, you know, I wasn't really Aaron it out. And then they're like a day later MRI. So I think it's clear, like it's clear to me that there's signal in spring training velocity numbers and you should care.

I think it, I think you should care. The problem is there's a lot of noise too. There are some veterans out there who were just not going to try hard until their fourth start. There's guys are slow walking things. There are guys who were like, she'd do a little set, slap an ass and, and playing golf, you know, there's guys are slow walking things. There are guys who were like, she'd do a little set, slapping ass and playing golf, you know, like there's different approaches and it's really hard to figure it out.

So I think generally the way to do it is take the information in and bump them down a couple spots. Carol went in this one went 12th and Tatis went right after him. If the back injury come in, do you think it'd be appropriate just to take Tatis over Carol? Just in case you just tweak the order.

I think the gap between players around the top of the board is so small that if you're dealing it's the gunner situation. I've gunner eight right now on the hitter rankings. If I'm drafting in this exact moment, I would take Tatis ahead of Gunner. I have to Tatis behind him right now in the rankings.

I would take Carol ahead of Gunner. It's just a couple of spots. It's not a lot. Yeah. That's another thing about rankings. Rankings are the frozen time. We get information the minute we put them out. You were joking about that, right? Yeah. I think the more I look at how we publish them and how people want to use them and how they actually should work, they just a big list of 300 hitters feels a little off to me. Yeah, I've been my even my rankings where I'm like, where do I put these like high upside guys that are super injury risk? And like, I don't know what your league is like. And like I don't know what your league is like I think and I probably made this plea on the show last year I think I even wrote about it once for one of our weekly recaps But I think what it really should be is like for the first hundred hundred and fifty bats You know you do have an ordered list

That's fine because you can generally say this is how I generally want to get just the best player available as long as possible And then at a certain point probably around at least at least pick 200, you start to say, okay, now I need certain things. Like I have put together, even in your base, you need some balance, but you know what you did in your base more than I do as a person making a list prior to your draft, right? So if I then take the players and group them,

rank them within groups, but don't rank them all against each other from that point forward. It's potential prospects to stash, right? Then you have 30 or 40 guys that are similar in uncertainty about their role. Speedsters with, you know, whatever, bottom third of the order speedsters, little group of players there, big side platoon mashers. And you can decide in this format, on this roster, what player type do I need?

And then go to that group and say, okay, here's the best available left-handed platoon masher. I can use that player. And I do that often with the positionals, like the positional searches in the draft room where I'm like, oh, I need an MI. So get MI open and then look at the rankings and be like, what's the best MI?

But you still have to do fit. Like you're saying, I kind of like these fit groupings a little bit better because, you know, I could be looking for an MI or a CI, but I'm actually looking for steals. Yeah. Yeah. You're looking for steals and then you're kind of saying, okay, who's the best speedster available?

And then the speedsters across positions are ranked and you go, well, I have an opening at MI. So the first couple of guys might be outfielders. Okay. I take the third or fourth guy because that player fits my roster the best. At least you then are shopping in the right bin for the thing you need. And you know that compared to the best available speedster, you're not you're not getting quite that player, but you're at least in range because ADP

softens and the decision making softens as you move along. Like that's very, very this discussion that's very, very, very true. Circle this discussion, that's gonna come right back again when we start talking about our boards. Yeah, that's just, we can go there right now. Let's do it. I mean, don't wait at shortstop, don't wait at middle infield,

maybe is the broader advice. You don't get caught in the bad end of a run, because you're drafting from which spot here? Randy Arosa-Rena, that's my team. Okay, team three. Orozarena and Fairbanks. So just to tell you sort of what I'd done at that moment, I had Judge and Acuna as my two first outfielders,

so I felt good about that. I got Austin Riley, Matt McClain at MI, Jake Berger, JT O'Gara Muto. So I had a good catcher that I liked. I missed out on the very best, but I got an okay one that I liked. Jake Berger was like, O'Gurl Muto. So I had a good catcher that I liked. I missed out on the very best, but I got an okay one that I liked. Jake Berger was like, I need a first baseman. I don't want to get dropped down into the tiers below this as my starting first baseman. So I thought I'd really just gotten really good players. I maybe had one more pitcher that I normally had

at that point because I got Crochet, DeGrom, and Webb. And so I was like, I don't have a closer and I'm looking at the value sheet and a Rosarina is like pick number one 50 and he's just, he's like in my top 60 batters and everybody else that I'm looking at at bats isn't in the hundred. So it's like, I got to take a Rosarina. I got, I got like, it's just, the value is just shooting off the page of me. And I could use another outfielder. So I take a Rosarina I got I got like it's just the value is just shooting off the page of me and I could use another outfielder So I took a Rosarina then on the way back. I was like, I don't have a closer Fairbanks is the last like Anointed closer. I mean there's Kenley Jansen went after him and Justin Martinez. We don't even know Justin Martinez Is it I think Kenley Jansen Ryan Presley are the worst closers in the pool, quote unquote, that I think are closed.

Maybe Estevez. So Fairbanks is the last closer that I wanted, you know, that I was like, if he's healthy, I like him, I want him. So I took Fairbanks. And the reason I took Fairbanks is I looked at MI and I said, there are eight MI that I want. And look what happened. I'm in the third slot and this happens.

So I take Fairbanks, it goes, you know, some guys, Horner, Jimenez, Volpe, Wynn, some guys, Stott, some guys, Jackson Holliday, Danzby Sponson, some guys, Jeremy Pena even goes. And so all of the MI that I had on the list, I was like, at least Pña will come back to me. Peña went like six picks before I got to go. And so, when it comes back to me,

Yandy Diaz is another guy. He's in the 70s and everybody else is in the hundreds. And I'm like, I could use another CI. And then it occurred to me, I need an MI. And one of the few people I liked left, cause Brandon Lau's on there, but he's a platoon player. This is a weekly league.

I don't really like Glebertorres. Colt Keith is okay, but I don't know. I'd rather have him as like kind of a sleeper or bench guy that's like helping me paper over the spot. Gelof fit my needs. I needed stolen base, but he had bad batting average. And my value sheet says, this is a like 20 spot jump. Like if you take Gelof here, it's a 20 spot jump.

Like he's rated like 200 and you've got him, you're at the 180 pick. But I realized, you know, I take Yandy Diaz, Yandy Diaz plus Gelof is actually kind of a cool pairing at CINMI. You know, it's got that nice batting average from Yandy Diaz and you get the power speed from Gelof. actually kind of a cool pairing at CIMI, you know? It's got that nice batting average from Andy Diaz, you get the power speed from Gelof, they kind of smush together, the player's smushing machine there works. And I realized, if I don't jump Gelof 20 points here,

what's gonna happen is, if Gelof goes on the way back, like if I play the chicken game, which we all play, which is like, will this guy make it back to me? If I play the chicken game and lose, I'm gonna have to jump Trevor story 30 points that feels less good than that gallop as far as what you think those guys are likely to do the health problems that Trevor stories had through his entire time in Boston so I completely understand why you chose to do that with Galop and I

do think if you're going to break away from ADP. Another reason I didn't like Keith and Divertora is for me is I need steals. I needed steals from that MI slot so I couldn't, those aren't really great options for me. Even Brandon Lowd, not really great options for me. I think it's fine to break from ADP anytime. The further into your draft you go the more comfortable you should be doing it. But I was also breaking from my value sheet. So I was doing something that was not quote unquote,

you know, plus EV. I wasn't making the best value judgment, but my team needed it to happen. Sometimes you draft different than what you have written down on your sheet, different than what the formula says, different than what your own rankings say. Here's an example right here.

If you're looking at the YouTube screen, I'm in the 15th slot of TGFBI. I didn't have a shortstop round 14 rolls along. And I took Zach Neto, even though I've been very concerned about his shoulder, because I felt like he was clearly the best option I could get. I think he's the best player I can get the position. The injury is a major source of uncertainty for me. I could get I think he's the best player I can get the position the injuries Major source of uncertainty for me I have Carlos Correa ranked pretty far ahead of Neto on the overall list because I think on a per game basis I think Cray is just an underrated player that he kind of know who he is

It's just a question of how often is the soft tissue stuff gonna come up and and bother Cray or the foot stuff or all? The things we know about him, right? The reason why I did it in this order is because I had very little Confidence based on what the market does what rooms tend to do that Zack Neto would be there at my next turn So some of it's just saying Probability of what's gonna happen. We're both in this terrible Like this is what this is the problem with being on the ends. You have to jump guys sometimes. You have to just let it go.

You have to just say, ah, this might be the earliest this player's gone, or there's a chance I could be right if I let him try to come back, but I don't know. I was six points below the highest scale off his gun. Yeah. I just didn't want to live with the consequences of passing on Neto and then being in a position

where my shortstop doesn't run or my MI doesn't run. You know, well, Neto misses time at the end of the season. I can cobble it together and I'll draft another multi-positioned eligible player and I'm not too worried about it. And you took Korea there, which is an interesting pairing too, which is kind of like healthy at the beginning of the season, healthy at the end. Right. I might not have them both healthy at the same time very often,

but hopefully I'm getting pretty good per game performances from my shortstop spot at a relatively low price and kind of sandwiched right in the middle there is Max Muncie. That 15, 16 turn, Muncie and Correa paired together probably feels pretty similar to what you did with Yandy and Galov, where you say,

okay, I'm gonna take with Yandy and Galov where you say, OK, I'm going to take the worst characteristic of Galov and offset that with the thing that Yandy does well and they're going to bounce each other out and give me two very solid players across the board. I think Max Muncie missed about half of last season, but it was close to a 30 homerun pace, well over 80, 90 run scored and RBI's that sort of he's still that guy. He's still in that lineup. So I I kind of have landed on Max Muncie as a reason to not be as aggressive with some of the masters I was talking about earlier in the show, even though I obviously straight up, you know, the likes of Rooker or Ozuna or Teoscar

or those types of players, they're better, but they're not. They're not as far ahead of Muncie. And for me, at least as the ADP has them, the gap should be smaller between the Muncie just feels very underpriced right now. I mean, even in this particular draft, like Esau Paredes went in the 12th round. I got Muncie three full rounds later. What's really the difference in expectation between those two players? And then don't we have more confidence in Muncie

because he's done it at that level for a longer period of time? Yeah, you know, this makes me think of a few things. That's, you know, there's a change over the course of the draft of how much you should divert from your value sheet. And so, you know, sometimes there's a little bit of a false precision where you're like,

oh, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is worth $37.6 by the bad X and Fernando Tatis Jr. is worth $35.7. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is obviously better than Fernando Tatis. And I'm here to say that I think it's okay to muck around on the two to three dollar level which ends up being like three or four spots in the early rankings depending on how you feel because this is false precision not only because this is just the bad X if I switch over to steamer it has a totally different number you know so yet you can

do your best and use ATC or composite and have the best values but whatever you come out with is just a sort of general guide. So if you think Jordan Alvarez's knees bother me, and I know that the bad access he's 35.2, but Juan Soto doesn't have that knee problem, he's 33.5, do it. You know what I mean? If Julio Rodriguez is $32.9. Yes, exactly $32.9. Except Ronald Acuna Jr.'s ahead of him with I think a huge range of outcomes.

Yoron Alvarez with the bad knees is in front of him. Gunnar Henderson is in front of him. If you wanna take Julio Rodriguez as the sixth best in the sixth spot or seventh spot, I think go for it. I think that's an acceptable amount to play around with it. Now, I wouldn't take Jackson Churio, who's predicted to be $25.7, $26 in the first round. Like I wouldn't be that aggressive.

So I think there is something to do with, there's a certain aggression. Then of course, I just outlined a case where I maybe left $3 on the table in value or whatever because my my team fit So by the time you get down to the tenth round I think there's a slightly different math where you can be more like three to five different dollars difference if you if you think you need to jump somebody and Then by the time you get to the 15th round in the 200 pick

I think you can drop jump a guy 30 spots if it fits your if it fits your team better So I think there's a sort of sliding scale there. There's a little bit of false precision when it comes to whatever values you're using. That's part of it. But, you know, the other thing that you have to do though, is to really investigate the alternatives, you know, and just be like, maybe I can cobble this together. Because the other thing that I'm thinking about is like, with you, you lean into risk sometimes. Sometimes. Yeah, a lot.

But I'm just saying, like, I could have not taken Fairbanks there. I could have reinvestigated other players and been like, okay, I'm not gonna take Fairbanks here, I'm gonna take Jimenez. That's who I was gonna take, Andres Jimenez. And Andres Jimenez went four picks later, so that could have been the smart move.

And just really investigate, what do I do if I don't take Fairbanks here? And that would have been probably Justin Martinez who didn't make it back to me. So you have to think, not only, what do I do next round if this doesn't work out, but what if I do if this really doesn't work out? You know, what is like the really worst case scenario,

which for me would have been like a full punt of saves, like maybe take Kyle Finnegan, but you'll still, then you'll have to jump Kyle Finnegan a little bit, you know, to make sure that you do it. So like at some point in the draft, you're gonna have to jump somebody. So it just becomes a question of who you're jumping. So the thing I did, like the Fairbanks pick for you,

I think, yeah, that was maybe a slight luxury or a thing that if you hadn't done that, then you wouldn't have been in the same middle infield situation that you ended up in. Mine was going two pretty early catchers. I took Wilson Contreras in the sixth and Will Smith in the seventh. Anytime I do that, I'm like,

that's gonna cost me something later. What's it going to cost me? In this particular league, it was passing on some saves at those turns. That's what I ended up saying I didn't want. I thought about Felix Bautista instead of Wilson Contreras. I decided to kick the can down the road because I thought there might just be enough value there.

Ryan Walker or Suarez would be there next time. They both went. They went late round six. Closers got bumped. I knew that was a possibility. My backup plan was Tanner Scott and Jeff Hoffman in rounds nine and 10. I feel like I did okay for waiting on closers.

I double tapped them down there and I think I'm gonna live to tell the tale. I took a real muto on the ninth because Scott, Bednar, Magill, and Hoffman were on my cue. And they went four in a row. Yeah man. It's like there goes my queue. I still don't think I've articulated this point very well

but I like picking on the ends because I think choosing two players at a time is easier. It's easier to problem solve some of the what could go wrong for me there because the runs will still catch you even if you're in the middle of the draft order. If you're team eight, foreclosures can go between your two picks and you have the same sort of problem.

And I think as long as you're comfortable pushing players ahead of ADP, breaking out of there, doing things that are a little bit different, I think you can do well. If you're not comfortable doing that, then stay away from the ends, because the ends will make you crazy. Or you'll make what you think is a mistake

and they could compound and turn into two or three mistakes because you're trying to adjust too much to a plan that you didn't necessarily set out to build. There are leagues where you can choose your draft slot or you can put your preference in. It's called KDS, Kentucky Derby System. I would pick like five, six, seven, I think. You choose that, okay, so here's my only pushback on that.

The way I looked at the hitters this year is I took all the projection systems on fan graphs, ran through the auction calculator, and then I did a combined rankings with the dollar values to just see, like, let's get the noise out. It's kind of like the ATC concept, right? Take all the projections and just find the middle ground. There's a three player tier at the top by projections

or tiny judge and wit, like when you combine the projections and then then everything kind of flattens out. So I think seeing that my first approach would be one, two, three, and then more of a what happens if I'm in these spots, where am I comfortable? It'd be, it might be like one, two, three, and then more of a what happens if I'm in these spots, where am I comfortable? It might be like one, two, three, 15 for me, but that's not necessarily how I advise everybody else to play. You're doing a ballpark snack.

Can you bring that in? Did you just forget? No, I just thought you were talking. I mean, I was. I didn't keep talking. I had my spreadsheet covering. It was a fully timed... My sheet was covering where the food came from so I didn't

see you do it otherwise I would have just covered you for 45 seconds. But you want to do a review of the snack you just ate? Yeah, just a Mandarin. Yeah, I get you. I get you. I don't like waiting forever between picks so maybe it's part of that. I did have a six in bar for some, or one of my recent drafts, where I think there's like almost like a vibe shift

from the middle to the ends. I feel like on the ends, sometimes you can be aggressive and force runs and like make the room do what you want it to. Team 15 in this draft. I believe I can do that. I don't know if I actually can, but I as a person who likes to be aggressive and kind of control more what I'm doing.

Yes, that's that describes exactly what I'm trying to do. Team 15 in my draft to Julio Rodriguez and Jackson Trier at the top. That's pretty exciting. That's a lot of upside. That's two outfielders, two power speed out That's two outfielders to power speed outfielders bing bang Lot of outfielders went a little bit higher than you expect like Jackson Merrill went like four or five high spots higher than the ADP In the second round. I'm not saying that necessarily because of that but like that might have happened he also did Logan Ohapi plus Francisco Alvarez at the 7-8 turn and

What happened at nine for me is I took Rio Mudo because I was like, uh-oh, this is starting to dry up real quick. It does create a little bit of panic when they- He's double tapped pitchers twice. Yeah, if you double tap anything, I think it creates a little bit of urgency for the people at least immediately next to you.

It doesn't necessarily make the entire room. If people next to you start to panic and follow suit though, then it does impact the whole thing. You at least can create short runs. He's part of my stupid MI run because he double tapped MI. That is definitely something I would do. Jeremy Pena.

So yeah, he's part of what screwed me. So sometimes when you, at six, seven, the benefit is you're like, oh, I can just, all these things are dropping to me. Catching value, yeah. Yeah, just catching value. I'm gonna take my favorite. That's like reactive in a way.

Yeah, I don't like being reactive. Hit pause on whatever you're listening to and hit play on your next adventure. Stay two nights and get a $50 Best Western gift card. Life's the trip, make the most of it at Best Western. Visit bestwestern.com for complete terms and conditions. I felt exhausted. I had this draft rising in the six or seven spot and I felt exhausted and I felt like

I was reacting the whole time. I'd like my team at the end, but maybe one fits your personality better than the other. I do agree that there is a three person tier at the top. So if you want to put one, two, three at the beginning, I don't mind. I don't love three though. I took Judge, yay, I got one of the top three guys. And never said that. I was sad with Aaron Judge, man.

Like you're like a Yankee fan. Like oh, we only got Judge. Judge is our best player. Yeah, that's awesome. That's what you want. Oh, the anti-Judge stuff just drives me crazy. But yeah I think it's there is a how do you like to play element of KDS. The thing I read from Jenny Butler does some writing now over at FTN with our

friend Vlad Sedler who was on last Friday. I think what I've read from her stuff in the last couple of years and maybe even some Scott Jens that stuff from a few Years ago at Rota wire they're looking at least six rounds into their builds as they think about KDS You know kind of thinking about what different combinations if I get two pitchers or for two starting pitchers in a closer from this spot What does it cost me or if I am speed light from this spot? What does it cost me? It's kind of problem solving it that way barf went exactly the way I planned based on where I was in where my pick was for the first four or five rounds.

Yeah, and then it kind of opens up. Then it's like a little wobble that then, you know, by the seventh round, you know, it's nothing to do with anything else. Yeah, so just think about, I think the first six rounds, I think that's generally the advice that you should follow when you're trying to figure out Where you want to be FBI went off the rails for me in the third round Yeah

That's one of those rooms to where there's there's a little more of a get your guys energy that comes in early And I think that can make the board less predictable Whereas you know barf is a lot of the same people year-over-year playing against each other knowing each other's tendencies and in this little more Familiarity there so I think that makes a difference too. Is it a home league? Is it a league you've never been in before? a lot of the same people year over year playing against each other, knowing each other's tendencies and there's a little more familiarity there. So I think that makes a difference too. Is it a home league? Is it a league you've never been in before? That can be a factor.

That's what I mentioned, like the difference between using standard gains points versus Z-scores. It's like, I think you use Z-scores in a league that you don't know each other's tendencies and you're playing people that you never, you haven't played before, you know, that with lots of different strategies, I think you use Z-scores, that's the auction calculator.

But San Jose's points makes a lot of sense if you've been playing the same guys forever, which is tying each value, each stolen base to how much it would be worth in your league. Yeah, SGP and Caracara oranges are the way to go, man. Not mandarins, you want Caracara oranges. Those are the best oranges that are out there right now. Everyone knows that, right? I think

Everyone doesn't know that I don't know what a caracara oranges. I use buying and just buying an orange like it's an orange Yeah, caracara oranges, that's what you want Let's go to the mailbag some nice broad questions that came in first one from Jaylee who will be this year's Jack Nice broad questions that came in first one from Jaylee who will be this year's Jack Flaherty last year Flaherty was brilliant during spring training provided value to prove to be a valuable pick for those who drafted him There is a lot of noise during this period we talked about that earlier You mentioned Nola's Velo being down was three scoreless innings with six K's like it wasn't Great so I'm a little more on that. Okay. Let's just keep an eye on this sort of thing But you know a lot of stuff going on right now You look great, so I'm a little more on the, okay, let's just keep an eye on this sort of thing.

But, a lot of stuff going on right now, so what could lead to significant rewards? A few suggestions from Jay Lee. Could there be improvements in pitch mix, shape, velocity, other things that make someone pop the way Flaherty did a year ago? Clay Holmes is the obvious choice, but are there any under-the-radar options

worth considering? Thoughts on Maeda, Weathers, Bueller, or Zebby Matthews? Well, Zebby came up with some sort of injury, and I don't know how big a deal it is. Again, we're in that sort of information gap part. Also, I don't know that a lot of these guys fit the bill, because Jack Flaherty's, Maeda's old, and Zebby Matthews is young.

Jack Flaherty's like a mid-career guy that's been up and down, right? Yeah, mid-career is probably the better way to describe him. So if that's what you're looking for, I don't know, I do think of Max Meyer a little bit. He hasn't even had the breakout yet, though. Flaherty was at least good once before, showed us that ceiling,

and it was treated like a top 50, 60 overall pick. And then was kind of forgotten, and then came back, like Reed Detmers, maybe overall. And then was like kind of forgotten and then came back. Like Reed Detmers maybe? How about Jesus Lazardo? I think that's maybe the, for me- Once we get actual Velo numbers, I can maybe be with you on that.

Outside the top 200 right now in ADP, occasionally gets bumped in there, but usually that's where you're gonna get him. Has shown a ceiling before, kind of like Flaherty. Has had injuries slow him down and hasn't had the consistency with the ratios that you'd expect for a guy that has, what has been pretty good stuff throughout his career, man.

So that's sort of the, was a big prospect, has flashed it, has been hurt, and is coming at a discount. Like that's probably the type of pitcher I'm looking at. I've got Jesus Lazardo velocity numbers. You do. He's been training. I mean, if there were NOLA numbers,

there could be Lazardo numbers. 96.5. That's actually pretty good. I think that's good. That's actually a big part of sort of Flaherty's up and downs. And 96.5 is more like 20, 23 whenuzardo had a 358.121 whip. Plus, I love Caleb Cotham as a pitching coach. I don't haven't been a big Luzardo fan, but I I like that one.

That's a pretty good one. I think Flaherty was always kind of polarizing to before last year. There are people that were believers in the guy that he was when he peaked in St. Louis and there were skeptics that said, no, he's the guy that's hurt all the time and blowing up your ratios. Yeah, that's pretty good. I'm gonna bump him up a little bit in my rankings just because of this.

Love the influence I'm having right now. You're gonna go to the store later and you're gonna come back with a three pound sack of Cara Cara oranges too. Yeah, that could happen. Nick Pavetta, yeah, Nick Pavetta. Nick Pavetta? Yeah, Nick Pavetta. Nick Pavetta, slight changes in Arsenal,

but also just a park change. Oh, that's the other part of it. Yeah, Flaherty got the nice picture-friendly park for the first four months, and then ended up on a World Series-winning team for the final two. Right, Detroit, dude. And Flaherty didn't actually change that much of his arsenal in Detroit. Yeah, more changed after the final. Right, Detroit, dude. You know, and Flaherty didn't actually change that much of his arsenal in Detroit.

Yeah, more changed after the trade. That was the surprising part. More curves after the trade. But yeah, so I think Pavetta is somebody that comes to mind as he's been slightly moving up in my ranks, especially since, you know, a lot of what happens in spring is people moving down in ranks, coming up with an injury here or there. So that's someone who comes to mind for me.

All right, thanks a lot for that question, Jaylee. If you got some submissions that you wanna throw in there, use the Discord. Let us know who you think this year's Jack Flaherty will be. I think we sort of answered this question earlier in the show, maybe by accident or because we read the question before the show, I'm not really sure. Vesity Beetle1 is curious about our strategy around and after pick 100.

I find that once I get there invariably there are a ton of guys high on my board that I have a hard time passing up but then sometimes I find myself late to snag a catcher or a reliever as a result. Obviously no one size fits all approach, but any general advice on how to balance team needs versus best available at that point in the draft. Because that is kind of in that sweet spot. We were just talking about mapping out your first five to six rounds. Now you're still kind of caught in between the do I just want to hammer the mistakes that shouldn't be there on the board or am I tilting my team

to start molding it more to fill clearer needs? Right? Maybe you're very power heavy with your bats. So you have to get speed there. Like, can you keep taking best available at pick 100 and still have enough time as you keep moving through those next few rounds to get everything you need in a Roto league? I'm trying to accrue value with an eye on needs.

For example, in this one, even though I only had Matt McClain and Ronald Cunha Jr. for steals and was already falling behind a little bit because Judge and Riley was my start, the only, yes, I'm not depressed about Judge, I'm just saying it's not a great stolen base start. You know, like it's not, I'm behind on stolen bases

compared to any, like compared to Julio Rodriguez, Jackson Trujillo, you know, like I'm way behind on stolen bases. So like seventh round, that's around pick 100 in the 15 team league. I took Logan Webb and it was a bit of the Yolo Yo-Yo with the Grom and crochet, but that wasn't a, oh, I need to go get, there wasn't a really great option there in the next round, but

I could have, Christian Jelic was by my value sheet was a decent pick there and he steals bases, you know, Boba Shet, I don't know, he's gonna steal a lot, but he was there. So it was, it was pretty easy for me to take one. On the way back, I took Jake Berger over Luis Garcia Jr. Luis Garcia Jr. I've just, the guy who makes me nervous is Starlin Castro. Oh, you think of Starlin Castro? Yeah, debuted pretty young, flashed in pretty good skills.

And kept getting a little bit better every year. So you're just like, he's gonna get better again. And then he didn't, he he stopped I don't know I get I get a little bit of strong cast provides there like I said I mean I got in trouble around pick 150 taking a Rosa Reyna when I maybe should have taken Jimenez so I pushed that number to 150 I think or maybe the 10th round depending on like how deep your league is. Yeah, I think it's a little later than pick 100 before I start saying I got to fill needs.

I do just keep saying best value, best value, best value, because I think I have enough paths to correct any sort of like oversteering. If I'm only nine or 10 picks into that roster, most likely there's still a couple of pictures. There's two or three pictures on the roster at a minimum and then everything else is a bat. I'd keep taking Vest available a little bit longer in that range. That's just the way I like to play and I think it's usually fine, no matter what you need to be able to get it later. If you do a couple of early drafts and you say, every time I do this,

I end up with terrible closers, then I think your adjustment is just prioritizing a closer a little bit earlier and then still taking best available for the most part throughout those first 10 rounds and then you're you've kind of covered that flaw within your your core goals of what you're doing. I think it's just tweaking up there as opposed to making a firm decision to do something different right at pick 100 there are certain like pathways that start splintering from 100 so they're again like if the precision level on the first round picks is like two or three dollars where you can be like Oh, I'm gonna take this 33 guy over this $30 guy or you know the $30 guy over the 33 dollar guy

Because whatever reasons the precision level at at pick 100 is more than the $5 level, so you can still make little decisions, but you'd still kind of want with the best value at that point. Yeah, pick 11, Pete Fairbanks, that was a need pick. I paired a value pick in Randy Orisarana with a need pick in Pete Fairbanks. That's another spin on that Yolo yo-yo.

Yeah, exactly. We've been talking about. Thanks a lot for that question, Nesity Beetle. Let's take a look at this one from Big Eric. Thinking of using a roster spot in dynasty league on Drake Baldwin, how are we feeling about his chances of starting the season for the Braves? Are they just going to scoop up Grand Hall

with two weeks to go in camp? Who is even there in the conversation? Is Sean Murphy strong competition when he returns? We talked about this a little bit earlier in the week. The veterans they have in camp, Trump and Sandy Leone and I think Kurt Casale was the other name that they've got around right now. No one's really good enough to just be an everyday guy. It'd be a timeshare if they don't use Baldwin at all. It'd be surprising if they didn't use Baldwin in some. It'd be surprising if they didn't use Baldwin in some capacity.

I think this is the broader question here is like, how much are you prioritizing a catcher in a dynasty league, especially if it's a one catcher league? We play in devil's rejects and I feel like the market in that league overcorrects to the point where catchers are just readily available later than they should be. Yeah, in fact, if you look at the auto-populated draft board like that CBS gives us, like the draft queue,

it's like five of the first seven players are always catchers. Like nobody wants them. I think Drake Baldwin is good enough to be a very good top 10 fantasy catcher, maybe even a little more than that. It's just gonna be a question of how quickly it happens with Sean Murphy there and the way the roster's built, with Marcel Azuna being an everyday DH,

you can't really have those guys coexisting. Baldwin could help and then go back down when Murphy's ready. That seems like the most, like if you're managing your roster. You know, what's also funny about the guys you mentioned is like, you know, those are the kinds of players that teams really work hard to keep on their rosters.

So they may not even start Baldwin because they'd rather put somebody like Kaselly on waivers during the season and not in spring when somebody might pick him up, you know. My evidence for this is the Farhan Giants, all the stuff they did to try and get cr catchers. They were, I don't even remember the guy had zero power. They got him from Papierski.

They got him from the Astros. They got, who's the guy who's with the, with the, uh, like Sable. They were, they were claiming catchers all the time and they lost Joey Bart in the carousel, but which is kind of silly in retrospect. But there are teams that there's a guy in the front officeel, which is kind of silly in retrospect, but there are teams that,

there's a guy in the front office who's like catcher depth guy. He's just like always on the lookout for how can we improve our catcher depth. And the flip side of that is in fantasy that it means that like a lot of older catchers hang on longer. It means that young catchers take forever to debut.

That's also really, it also a really tough position, and the debut age is later. Like, he'd be, Drake Balto at 23 would be a very early debut for a catcher. You know? You have guys like Cal Raleigh is like one of the best defensive, he won the platinum glove, I think, at some point,

and he's 28. He didn't get a full-time job until he was 26. You know, this is a guy who came out of college who everyone said is amazing behind the plate. You know, the next buster posy behind the plate and he didn't get a job until he was 26. So all these things come together and then the last thing is if you just look at projections for how good batters are, like catchers are as batters, as bats, like they have an average like 86 WRC plus or something so like they're not good good batters are, like catchers are as batters, as bats, like they have an average like 86 WRC plus or something, so like they're not good as batters. So I generally punt the position,

but in Devil's Rejects, we have J.T.R. Ryomoto and we just picked Bo Naylor because he fell forever. Bo Naylor is making more contact in spring. He could make more contact than he did last year. He puts the contact together with the power and speed. He could be the next Ryomoto. It's not that far off and he has last year. He puts the contact together with the power and speed. He could be the next Rio Mudo. It's not that far off. And he has a job.

So I would just say have an old guy and have a young guy, but don't spend that much on either. Yeah, I think it's interesting too. If you look back at what Atlanta did when William Contreras broke in, he was sharing time with Travis Darnoe. Contreras was good in the minors, but he didn't just tear it up everywhere he played either.

Some of that was the Brewers coaching up the defense, I think. They're really good at coaching up the defense. Yeah, and he was like, William Contreras was young for the level, when he got the double A for the first time in 2019, he had 246 with a 306 OBP and a 340 slug. If you'd looked at that, it said,

he's gonna be the best catcher in the pool in a few years. Like you would have- You'll see that with Andy Rodriguez too. Like sometimes the player development guide, like the director of player development or the roving catching instructor, somebody has come up to him and been like, listen, all we care about is your framing.

And then you go on like a two month binge of like reading about framing and talking and doing, and like you forget to prepare for that night's hit pitcher. There's so much to do as a catcher that like they could be asking to work on blocking at the plate. And you just didn't think about hitting for a while. You know, the development arcs for catchers just look different, I think is the main takeaway.

And Drake Baldwin might be good while Murphy's hurt for a lot of leagues. Very tough to use in a lot of leagues when Murphy comes back and then a year and a half I don't have a full time role for two years It may just take a lot longer than you want. So I think with catchers It's more like managing right now in a dynasty league. I if it's a one catcher league. It's a deep bench I probably roster to like roster an older catcher that you know is gonna play and Have your flyer on a Drake Baldwin because if that old catcher gets hurt and breaks down at least you've got some ceiling and then the stop gaps on the waiver wire

they're usually there, they're usually just passable. You can find someone that's going to play at least half the time in most leagues and they'll be good enough to not bury you at the position but I wouldn't I wouldn't go out of my way to use a third or a fourth roster spot to try and stash more catchers. It usually doesn't pay off the way that you'd like it to. Thanks a lot for that question Big Eric. A lot of good questions this week. Be sure to drop new questions in the mailbag channel on our Discord.

You can join the Discord with the link in the show description. Find us on BlueSkyEnos, enocerous.beescottatsocial, I'm DVR.beescottatsocial. Thanks to our producer, Brian Smith, for putting this episode together. Be sure to get those three and five pound sacks of Cara Cara oranges this weekend. That is gonna do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Monday.

In the pocket of big orange. Thanks for listening. I don't know what a Cara Cara orange is.